And tonight, not one, but two major foreign policy announcements have me wondering if we are now seeing in action the president we elected in 2008, the one who ran on a platform, diplomacy over war. Rachel Maddow joins me to discuss this coming up.

But tonight, we begin with House Republicans set to meet tomorrow afternoon to map out a way forward on the continuing resolution to fund the government with just three short days until the government shutdown.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JARED BERNSTEIN, ECONOMIST: It`s starting to look like we may be having a harder time avoiding a shutdown.

SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D), NEW YORK: We are now three days, nine hours away.

JOHN HARWOOD, CNBC: We have a resolution that the House is going to be in over the weekend. Question is, can they get it done?

REP. JAN SCHAKOWSKY (D), ILLINOIS: Well, all on pins and needles, I`m in a hostage situation right now.

REP. PETER WELCH (D), VERMONT: It`s totally up to John Boehner. At certain point, he has to decide, does he continue to appease the Tea Party wing which favors shutdown and default, or does he put a clean C.R. on the floor?

HAYES (voice-over): The continuing resolution funding the government is now officially out of the Senate and in order to avoid a government shutdown, it`s up to House Republicans to now pass a spending bill.

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: So, over the next three day, House Republicans will have to decide whether to join the Senate and keep the government open or shut it down.

HAYES: And as Democrats led by the president are pressing Speaker Boehner for a clean bill that funds Obamacare, it looks like House Republicans are taking directions from someone else.

SEN. TED CRUZ (R), TEXAS: I view what`s critical is that the House passed a measure that protects the American people from the harms that Obamacare is causing.

HAYES: According to "The National Review`s" Robert Costa, Senator Ted Cruz is continuing to press conservative members to revolt against Boehner and strip the C.R. bill of Obamacare funding, thereby inviting a shut down on Monday. In just three days, we will know if Ted Cruz is able to complete his hostile takeover of the House of Representatives.

Now, let me tell you why you should be rooting for Cruz to win.

You see, there are two different deadlines approaching. One is manageable. One is catastrophic. On September 30th, the government will partially shut down if Congress does not pass a spending bill and that would be bad. It would cost money and thousands of government workers could be furloughed, but it has happened before and we can survive it.

On October 17th on the other hand, the government of the United States of America will default if Congress does not raise the debt ceiling. That would be unprecedented.

The consequences impossible to predict.

OBAMA: We don`t fully understand what might happen, the dangers involved, because no Congress has ever actually threatened default. But we know it would have a profound destabilizing effect on the entire economy.

HAYES: If the government does not shut down this Monday, the odds of a default two weeks later shoot up and that`s why you should be rooting for a government shutdown.

Imagine a government shutdown as an inoculation against the possibility of a default. Yes, it will be a little painful, it will be inconvenient, but it will be nothing compared to the consequences of getting the full blown disease.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There, protected and it didn`t hurt a bit.

HAYES: In the U.S. government default, we will get the disease, but if the Republican Tea Party Caucus wins the day and manages to bring about a shutdown, the American people will be inoculated. The public will get to see the consequences of GOP obstruction and possibly, just maybe, the House GOP will get to see just how unpopular they really are.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HAYES: Joining me now with the latest, Robert Costa, Washington, D.C. editor for the conservative "National Review" and a CNBC contributor, and the best source man in all of Washington with the House Republican Caucus.

OK, meeting tomorrow, the ball is back in the House`s court. It got passed out of the Senate for a clean resolution. What is the House going to do?

ROBERT COSTA, NATIONAL REVIEW: Great to be here, Chris.

I just stepped over here from the Capitol and House leadership is really flummoxed right now. They don`t really know how to proceed. They want to maybe have a short-term C.R. to extend the debate. They just don`t have the votes right now to get a clean C.R. through.

HAYES: Let`s just be clear, when you say they don`t have the votes, they don`t have the votes in the Republican Caucus. If John Boehner would go to the floor this minute and bring up a clean C.R., it would pass because every Democrat would vote for it. And they would have enough Republicans voting for it, it would pass. But if he does that, he risks open full scale revolt, correct?

COSTA: He really does, Chris. And the problem for Boehner is, and he has broken the Hastert Rule before, to allow Democrats to join with Republicans to form a majority. But because as you mentioned in your introduction, the pressure is so strong from the right, Senator Cruz is actually huddling with House Republicans trying to pressure them to have a standoff.

If he breaks the Hastert Rule with that Cruz pressure at the same time, his power is very tenuous.

HAYES: OK. You had an incredible piece of reporting today and it was about a phone call. Basically, John Boehner`s plan was get everybody to swallow hard and just pass a clean continuing resolution and double down and gear up for the fight on the debt ceiling. And then a bunch of Tea Party members had a phone call with Ted Cruz.

What happened in that phone call?

COSTA: In that phone call, Ted Cruz said to the House conservatives, don`t follow Speaker Boehner, have a real standoff right now on the C.R.

HAYES: People need to understand how unbelievably anomalous this is for a freshman junior senator to be ripping votes in the House against the leadership of his own party.

COSTA: Highly unusual.

HAYES: This never happens. I mean, Boehner must be losing his mind.

COSTA: Boehner, I hear, is fuming behind the scenes. Not just because it`s Cruz pressuring him from the right, but because it`s Cruz pressuring him from the Senate.

There`s a real frustration among the leadership that this freshman senator, Ted Cruz, is trying to dictate strategy for the House.

HAYES: This is like me walking down the hall and telling Rachel`s segment producers how to write their scripts. You do not do that. I mean, this is -- you have to stay in your lane. I imagine there`s going to be when they have the chance to extract their revenge on Ted Cruz, they`re going to extract.

But in the short-term, do you think the odds of a shutdown have now increased since the House Tea Party Caucus is balking at John Boehner`s attempts to get a C.R. passed?

COSTA: I think very much a shutdown is on the table, unless Speaker Boehner tells his conference that he`s willing to break the Hastert Rule to pass a clean C.R., I think this whole thing could shut down.

HAYES: All right. I want to bring in Melissa Harris Perry, host of her own show that airs weekends at 10:00 a.m. Eastern here on MSNBC. What I think is fascinating here is looking at this in the context of Democratic norms and we`re seeing norms fall all over the place. Ted Cruz, freshman senator whipping House votes.

There was this great piece Ryan Lizza put up in "The New Yorker" about the House suicide caucus. The term is Charles Krauthammer`s. It`s not mine.

And it`s basically 80 members of the House who wrote a letter to Boehner being like you`ve got to defund Obamacare. And, basically, what you find about these votes is that they`re in district much whiter than the country, older than the country, that are more likely to be located in the South and that make, that cover about 15 percent of the nation`s population.

And these are the people who appear to be essentially attempting to dictate the agenda for the entire government.

MELISSA HARRIS-PERRY, MSNBC HOST: Well -- I mean, we heard the president today sort of come out and make this reasoned argument. Let`s not hold our debt ceiling you know, hostage here and let`s not shut down the government because, well, that`s bad and we`re not disagreeing about much, we`re disagreeing about something that has been law, that has already gone to the Supreme Court, all of that.

But I think more important is for us to recognize what happens as a result of the very basic political reality that congressmen are single-minded seekers of re-election and, right now, the kinds of districts in this so many of these congresspersons are running, these Tea Party congresspersons are the kinds of districts that reward this kind of behavior, no matter what the kind of general good is.

HAYES: And reward something more than that.

I mean, Robert, what they`re rewarding also is we`re not just seeing norms be upset in terms of what you ask for in exchange for debt ceiling vote. We`re seeing norms of just how a caucus works. How leadership interacts with rank and file. How the two Houses interact with each other. I mean, this is all pretty unprecedented.

COSTA: It feels like I`m not only covering the end of the Republican Party. The party`s still I live. I`m covering the end of power and Boehner`s power is diminished. The earmarks are gone. The ability of leadership to shape the discussion has diminished, and what you have now is the conservative movement being really the center of gravity within the entire discussion.

HAYES: He`s a speaker in the name only.

HARRIS-PERRY: Right, but this is part of why, this is a moment when, for example, Democrats, liberals who might want to cheer the end of the Republican Party should just pause and have a cup of water and relax, because in fact, we want strong parties in this country. Initially, the Founders did sort of indicate an interest against parties, but one of the reasons parties grow up is in fact a good, strong party system protects against the sort of brinksmanship that we are currently looking at.

And so, you know, this is John Aldridge, you know, why parties, why do they emerge in the American concept? One of the reasons is in order to serve the interest of the party members. But the other is to serve a general interest. It`s why you have logrolling, it`s why you have the sets of rules that you do so that what you want actually is a strong Boehner because a strong Boehner keeps these kinds of interests in line.

HAYES: And what we see right now is a very weak Boehner.

HARRIS-PERRY: Exactly.

HAYES: We see him having exactly exercising no control over -- I mean, essentially zero control over his own caucus and I wonder also what this portends down the line for how this Congress behaves even after this crisis. I mean, we have gone from crisis to crisis where at a certain point, Robert, Boehner -- I mean, does Boehner actually fall at some point? I mean, is there an actual coup where they call a new election or he has to set down?

COSTA: I don`t think Boehner is going to have any kind of coup attempt, but his power is very much suffering. But I think there`s a larger story here, that Dr. Melissa Harris-Perry was mentioning, was that when it comes to thinking about immigration reform moving ahead, does Boehner have any kind of sway to move something forward? It`s all a game of survival right now for the speaker and that has consequences.

HAYES: Yes, it has that`s a great point. It has substantive consequences, right? Because he cannot -- unlike Nancy Pelosi, who was an incredibly strong speaker and delivered vote after vote after vote, he can`t deliver the vote for comprehensive immigration reform. Everyone knows that.

HARRIS-PERRY: That`s right. And so, you end up in this position where you`re sort of cheering for the folks who used to be the renegades, the John McCain`s who are now, sort of, who say, hey, yes, we disagree, but there are ways in which we move forward, right?

So, you`ve got the sort of elder statesman in the Senate, John McCain, against Cruz over there in the Senate. Part of what`s interesting about what`s happening in the Senate is that the Senate is meant to protect against this, right? These sorts of quirky personalities are supposed to emerge in the House of Representatives that has, you know, relatively smaller districts. The Senate is supposed to be the gentlemen`s game.

HAYES: And what we see now is in the Senate, they do not control the party caucus. In the House, they do. And that is precisely the dispute that we`re seeing play out in real time as you had essentially half of the Republicans in the Senate vote for this clean C.R. today.

Robert, very quickly, are the Tea Party caucus people, those 80 members what Krauthammer called the "suicide caucus", are they essentially at this point hoping for a shutdown? Do they think a shutdown would be a good clarifying moment?

COSTA: Yes, that`s a good point, because very briefly, when I speak to these conservatives in the House and Senate, they really believe if a shutdown happens, they can force the president to cave or at least have some concessions. That is a true belief. That`s just not some cynical spin. That`s what they really believe.

HAYES: Right.

Yes, and that`s what I think and you were nodding your head during that package. I`m rooting for a shutdown because I think you need to have the tension get let out of the system on catastrophic terms, not like a ceiling default.

HARRIS-PERRY: Yes, I mean, I am rooting for adults governing with those kind of broader interests at heart. But if we can`t have adults governing with a broader interests at heart, then I agree, there is kind of inoculating effect for the shutdown. But I think part of what we have to say and, look, I get it.

I almost want the president to come out this afternoon and we`d be like, all right, bring it, do that, shut that down, let`s see that, right? But the reason you can`t is because the people most likely to be hurt are the most vulnerable, right? And so, we know that from veterans to poor people. Those are the most likely to be injured in this game of brinksmanship, as always the most vulnerable Americans.

HAYES: And what I think is going to be interesting, Robert, is that we will see how it plays.

I mean, that -- one of the things, there`s these kind of competing conceptions of what the political reality that we would actually see play out were a shutdown to happen.

STEVE DOOCY, FOX NEWS: There`s a new poll out this morning that says -- you know, take a guess. How many people in this country, what percentage, have insurance now for the very first time because of the Affordable Care Act? How many? What percent?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES: The answer to that question is not surprising, but the response to the answer from those FOX News hosts is jaw-dropping and it requires us to present the FOX News viewers guide to Obamacare, coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HAYES: The weird thing about this job or the one weird thing about this job is that I spend an hour every night talking to you fine people, but I do it while staring into the cold, unblinking eye of the cameras. It`s unnatural.

Like all human beings, I crave interaction and human contact, which is why next Monday, at 9:00 Eastern, I will be talking over the ALL IN Facebook account for 30 whole minutes. You can ask your questions and we can interact like normal people. I would very much like to virtually meet you. So, it will be fun.

And we`ll be right back with Rachel Maddow.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HAYES: All right. We have some breaking news at this very moment. The United Nations Security Council has passed the resolution on the enforcement of the inspection and removal regime for Syria`s chemical weapons. The regime of Bashar al-Assad submitted this plan after diplomacy between Russia and the U.S. And now, an enforceable U.N. Security Council resolution has been passed.

This is pretty stunning news and it is not arguably the biggest piece of diplomatic news today. The other big news diplomatic news today is that for the first time in 34 years, the president of the United States, and the president of Iran have spoken to each other.

So, the president`s surprising announcement at the top of his public statement today.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OBAMA: Just now, I spoke on the phone with President Rouhani of the Islamic Republic of Iran. The two of us discussed our ongoing efforts to reach an agreement over Iran`s nuclear program. We`re mindful of all the challenges ahead, the very fact that this was the first communications between an American and Iranian president since 1979 underscores the deep mistrust between our countries, but it also indicates the prospect of moving beyond that difficult history.

So, the test will be meaningful, transparent and verifiable actions, which can also bring relief from the comprehensive international sanctions that are currently in place.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES: Watching this news break over Twitter, and then watching the president announced it and sitting and observing it, I felt like I was watching the man that I voted for in 2008, very proudly, who ran an entire foreign policy campaign about choosing diplomacy over war. A man who has president, has been drawing to a close the two wars he inherited, but also expanding our military activities in a variety of countries through counterterrorism and drones and special forces.

Today, I saw that candidate from 2008.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OBAMA: Our Iran policy is a complete failure right now and that`s the policy that John McCain is running on. He has nothing to offer except the naive and irresponsible belief that tough talk from Washington will somehow cause Iran to give up its nuclear program in support for terrorism.

I believe we need to use all elements of American power to pressure Iran, including tough, principled and direct diplomacy. That`s what John F. Kennedy did. That`s what Ronald Reagan did when dealing with the Soviets.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES: The guy who said he would talk to Iran on a campaign trail, today, talked to Iran. According to a senior administration official, Iranian President Rouhani wanted to speak to the president on the phone before leaving New York City. This after Rouhani reportedly turned down a meeting with the president in the margins of United Nations General Assembly earlier this week.

Today, at approximately 2:30 p.m., the two leaders engaged in a, quote, "cordial" phone call, lasting approximately 15 minutes. A translator facilitated the call as a common practice as the president made calls to foreign leaders.

And then there`s the tweets from Rouhani in (INAUDIBLE), President Rouhani and President Barack Obama, expressed their mutual political #will to rapidly solve the #nuclear issue.

It is a strange time we live in.

And this one, quoting the two world leaders. Hassan Rouhani, have a nice day. Barack Obama, thank you, (INAUDIBLE). A Persian language expression meaning, God be with you. I`m sure FOX will have a lot of fun with that.

Joining me now is the one and only, the great Rachel Maddow, host of "THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW", which airs right after this, at 9:00 Eastern. She`s also author of "Drift: The Unmooring of American Military Power."

I feel like there`s so much to talk about. Let`s start --

RACHEL MADDOW, TRMS HOST: Can we start with the #will? #will, it will happen. It`s not "yes, we can." It`s "yes, we will." Did, it happened. Amazing.

HAYES: It was amazing. It was amazing this happened and it did feel like, right, this was a huge issue in the 2008 campaign. What will we do with Iran?

And he, what Barack Obama did in that campaign was urn into the tough position, which was yes, I`m going to talk to Iran and here we are five years later, and he`s talking to Iran.

MADDOW: Well, what he -- so glad you played that piece from May 2008 because he`s saying, you know what? Tough, direct diplomacy is going to get us actually what we want from Iran rather than us sitting here haranguing them and not speaking to them. We`ve been trying not speaking to them since 1979, how`s that working out?

But this comes on the heels of an incredible upsurge in sanctions pressure under the Obama administration.

HAYES: Yes.

MADDOW: So they did stop talking as tough at the Bush administration did. They upped the toughness of their actual actions toward Iran and said we will talk. And obviously, it has a lot to do with the newfound willingness of the Iranian side to seek out an American to talk to.

But none of that would have happened had the Obama administration not pursued the course he took as a candidate.

HAYES: And I think one of the things that`s fascinating is the domestic political situation is so different now. I mean, it was different, you`ve already saw kind of waning in people`s enthusiasm for this neocon bellicosity back in 2008.

But in the wake of what happened with Syria in which the country almost together enjoined a cross party line, we are tired of war -- we just are tired of war, that I think we`re not going to see the kind of political domestic backlash to this conversation that happened today that you would have seen five or six or eight years ago.

MADDOW: It was remarkable -- I mean, the one great miles -- one great sort of benchmark person to watch here is always John McCain because John McCain has never met a war he didn`t like and John McCain`s response to the prospect of the U.N. Security Council resolution, which we apparently now have, was that it made him sad. He did not want this to be resolved diplomatically. He did not want Syria`s chemical weapons to be resolved without a war, that made him feel sad and what`s amazing about that is that it`s really just him. That`s a bizarre view to have.

And he has it alone now, and the rest of the country doesn`t have a window.

HAYES: We`re now showing the breaking news banner of what`s coming out in the U.N. I have to say, we were, you and I were both reporting on this in the run up to it and I was talking to people in Washington and watching it unfold when John Kerry came to the nation made this, you know, passionate argument for strike, and I was like that this is a train wreck, that the president is going to lose the vote in Congress, I think this is -- I think it`s a bad idea substantively to do this. I don`t think it`s going to work, I think it`s going to make things worse.

I can`t believe I`m sitting here a week later and there is a binding and enforceable U.N. Security Council resolution with Russia voting for it in which Syria is going to turn over their chemical weapons. It was incredible diplomatic victory.

MADDOW: Yes. On the day that the American president speaks to the Iranian president for the first time since 1979. I mean, these are both the kinds of things that are not just unimaginable a week ago, but unimaginable for the last several decades. And to have them all happening at once to have sort of diplobamacy bearing fruit in this dramatic way. I mean, I guess this is the way these things happen.

You know, you quietly work on these things for a long time, then all of a sudden, when opportunity is available, things happen all at once. But this is watershed stuff. This is historic.

HAYES: And what`s also interesting is that you have a situation now -- one of the reasons I wanted to talk to you about this specifically is I think there`s a case to be made that so much the foreign policy agenda of the president in the first five years was drawing these two wars to a close, that that took up the capacity for any kind of proactive diplomatic internationalism that was the original promise of the Obama campaign back in 2008.

Do you think that`s true?

MADDOW: It`s hard to know what progress is being made on the diplomatic front, right? You look at --

HAYES: That`s so true. It`s happening so quietly and away from the camera.

MADDOW: And how much does it matter that Hillary Clinton did those million miles, right? That she logged all of that face time with all of those world leaders going to places to have conversations that wouldn`t have necessarily happened under any other secretary of state without the kind of access and prestige that she had, how much did that lay the groundwork for what John Kerry has been able to actualize in his short term as secretary of state? How much of it is because of change happening in other that we have nothing to do with, even though we like to imagine ourselves as omnipotent?

HAYES: That is the other part of it. I mean, that`s a -- just to make that point. I mean, Iran, Iran had their own kind of Barack Obama election in which they threw out the kind of neocon cowboys who liked to go around the world enflaming the world with rhetoric. And this is not to make a moral equivalency, not (INAUDIBLE) George W. Bush, but to say that the domestic political considerations of the populous there was that they wanted a new course and they elected someone who gave them that and apparently, supreme leadership is also behind this.

MADDOW: Yes, I`m with you for now, right?

HAYES: For now, right? So, you also have domestic political considerations inside Iran, which have changed the situation.

MADDOW: And maybe we did influence those with sanctions. I mean, sanctions ratcheted under the Obama administration in a way that made them a qualitatively different experience from most regular on the street Iranian, and maybe that did affect what happened in that election in what Rouhani says is his mandate, which has allowed him now to have this call with Obama. You know, maybe we do this influence, maybe those things work, and maybe it`s mysterious.

But what you need to know as an American government is that we need competent governance. We need people who are good at diplomacy all the time and working at it even when it seems hopeless because sometimes, it takes 34 years for that phone call to happen. But when it happens, you better have done the work along the way because those opportunities come along very, very rarely.

HAYES: And bring it back to Syria, that was what was most remarkable about Syria, was that when an opportunity did present itself, the president took it.

MADDOW: Yes, even if it came from a weird place, right? I don`t care if John Kerry meant to say that in that way at that moment, when that opportunity arose, they were on it. And maybe that`s because of a preexisting relationship with Lavrov, maybe, who knows? But you got to be ready and, you know, preparation is 99 percent of taking advantage of the right opportunity.

I`m very, very proud of our diplomatic capacity as a country on that --

HAYES: Well, I`m very much looking forward to seeing what you have to say about this on your show, "THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW." Thank you so much for joining us.

MADDOW: Thanks, Chris. Thanks a lot.

HAYES: All right. Be sure to stick around, of course. "THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW" coming up at 9:00 p.m.

And we will be right back with #click3.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HAYES: Could it be the reason FOX News views so much misinformation about Obamacare is that their hosts actually don`t understand the most basic parts of the law, possibly. We will show you evidence that is exactly what`s going on coming up.

But first, I want to show the three awesomest things on the Internet today beginning with the newspaper of record. For over 160 year, "The New York Times" has offered its readers all the news that is fit to print and sometimes, that includes corrections. The latest entrant made to the o obituary of Hiroshi Yamauchi, the former president of Nintendo, the brothers Mario and Luigi who appear in Super Mario Brothers II and other Nintendo games are plumbers, not janitors.

Then, right there, are not janitors, but here we can`t beat on the great lady. The former language used makes these revisions down light endearing. You don`t need to read the original articles to enjoy. For example, this correction from 2006, n article about the abundance of satire referred incorrectly to an episode of "South Park." In it, the character Cartman tricks another child into eating his own parents in a bowl of chili, Cartman himself does not eat that one.

Try this one from 2011, an article about two college students with Aspersers (ph) syndrome who are navigating the perils of the Internet relationships misidentified the character from the animated children`s TV show, "My Little Pony." And this will intimate said to visualize the series out well. It is twilight sparkle, the nerdy intellectual, not flutter shy the kind of the ladder.

But perhaps the winner of this correction from August, an article last Sunday about the documentary maker Morgan Spurlock misstated the subject of his 2012 movie "Mansome." It`s about male grooming, not Charles Manson. I`m glad they cleared that up.

The second awesomest thing in the Internet today takes us to Sweden. This typically tranquil (INAUDIBLE) utopia, easily listening and low-priced furniture turned into a sweaty health skate this week where soccer fan from rival teams rumbled at train station. Now, police were ready to move when station`s escalator stepped in. It`s not clear whether it was intentionally sped up or the thing just gave out from let`s say a zillion people on it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Boy, that escalated quickly. I mean, that really got out of hand fast.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES: Sure did.

And the third awesomest thing on the Internet today as anyone who is ever watched TV at 3:00 a.m. most, characters in infomercials often fail at life, that`s why they need products sold only on television to help them deal with the everyday burdens of being alive.

Now, all of these misery has been such a music and I couldn`t think of a better jamming, `80s British Emo Pop, here are the Smiths.

(VIDEO CLIP PLAYING)

HAYES: It`s a pretty artful collection of acting and salesmanship, it makes me think infomercials will be better off using Morisi (ph) as their pitchman. Selected anyone?

You can find all the links for tonight`s click3 on our Web site, allinwithchris.com.

We will be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES: I think a large part of what la is designed to do, whether you agree with that ideologically or not, is to cover those on your insurance. So, I just want to know how many people in your district are we talking about.

REP. RENEE ELLMERS (R), NORTH CAROLINA: That was exactly the point. The point is that those who are uninsured right now will remain uninsured. Those who have insurance right now will lose their insurance.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES: There`s a lot of confusion about the implementation of Obamacare and the affects will have on people. And that confusions extends all the way to the halls of Congress. And last night`s show, Republican Congresswoman Renee Ellmers from North Carolina seemed unclear about what would happen to those who can`t afford health insurance and those already covered.

The basic tenants of the law are that millions without insurance will now qualify for Medicaid or be able to purchase individual insurance plans in newly created markets called exchanges often with subsidies from the government. While for the overwhelming majority of those with imploring provided coverage, things will stay the same.

Four days from the big Obamacare rollout of those exchange, millions of people have no idea what the hell any of it means. And part of the reason why Americans are so confused about Obamacare because the people taking about it literally don`t understand it at its most basic fundamental level. Some of this is blatant fear mongering around the law, but more of it is just not understanding what it does.

This morning, we got a perfect case study of this dynamic on live television.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STEVE DOOCY, FOX NEWS ANCHOR: The small business exchanges were supposed to be open. It is called the shop exchange, supposedly open on the first day October. And because of secular (ph) glitches and they haven`t figured out quite how to do it, they are going to say essentially you can fill out a paper, however it won`t be available online probably until November.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES: OK. So, it seems like Steve Doocy of FOX and friends read "the Washington Post" yesterday and discovered that government`s small business health exchanges which are similar to the individual exchanges but designed for smaller businesses owners to shop for plans for their employees, that will not open for online enrollment until November, which is not the best thing in the world. But what Steve Doocy doesn`t seem to grasp is that the law`s insurance plans don`t fully go into effect until January 1st.

January 1st is a very important day because again, that`s when the law goes into effect when people start getting insurance. Sign upstarts in a few days, but the law doesn`t go into effect until the first of the year. For instance, let`s say I signed up for direct deposit at my job the other day, but it won`t go into effect for another two weeks. That doesn`t mean the direct deposit program of the bank is broken.

But that wasn`t the only the thing D.C. was confused about.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DOOCY: Remember during the original argument about whether or not we should go ahead and pass the affordable care act also known, now known as Obamacare. They are famously Karl Rove said on this program, he said, you know, 85 percent of the country has health care and likes it. So why blow up the entire system for 15 percent.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES: OK, I don`t think Steve Doocy is being disingenuous here. I think he, like millions of people including many people in the media, just don`t understand the basics of law.

Obamacare does not blow up the entire system. In fact, the main thing the law does is deliver millions of new customers to the private insurance industry which is kind of the exact opposite of blowing up the system, it`s adding to the system.

If you are home watching this right now, the odds are extremely high that essentially nothing aside from some added benefits and protections is going to change about your health insurance on October 1st when the health changes go live online or January 1st when they start ensuring people. Nothing at all.

DOOCY: There is a new poll out this morning that says, that you know, take a guess. How many people in this country, what percentage have insurance now for this very first time because of affordable care act? How many? What percent?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I mean, I would go 20. Let`s go 20 percent.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES: Wait. Wait. 20 percent. That is a terrible guess considering that Doocy just said 15 percent of the country didn`t have health insurance. But -- OK, let`s continue.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DOOCY: What percent?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I mean, I would go 20. Let`s go 20 percent.

DOOCY: One percent.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, great.

DOOCY: One percent of the country now has insurance because of the affordable care act.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That`s it?

DOOCY: Yes. We are helping out 15 percent, so far, just one.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES: Yes. Yes. One percent. One percent because the core of the law designed to insure the uninsured has not fully gone into effect yet. Remember? I just said this a few seconds ago. January 1st is a very important date because again, that`s when the law goes into effect. But Steve Doocy believes the new health care law has failed to ensure the millions of Americans who currently like health insurance before the law goes into effect. That`s like complaining you haven`t gotten your hamburger yet from a restaurant that doesn`t open until next freaking week.

Look, laws are big and often complicated and it is genuinely difficult to figure out the details. They`re confusing and what might happen in the future is difficult to predict. But that`s what those of us in the news media are paid to do.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HAYES: Might have noticed something unusual if you turned on any college football games last Saturday. The letters APU written on wrist, tape and towels of 20 players from three different schools. It`s not a bible reference or tribute to an alumnus who died. It`s actually a subtle some aversive gesture that signaled all is not well with the world of college football. Players were pledging allegiance with all players united in order to protest and spotlight the NCAA`s treat of the players who generate massive amounts of revenue for their schools and coaches in exchange for relatively little in the way of payment or protections.

College football is a huge business. The University of Texas alone, one school, reported more than $100 million in football revenue over just one season. As you can see from the map, the highest paid public employee in the majority of states is a football coach. College football`s future prospects are not so clear. In fact, if I was a hedge manager and I could short college football, I would and here`s why. The sport has two colossal threats bearing down on it. The first is the increasing awareness, a college football players are putting themselves at serious risk for traumatic brain injuries.

Earlier this month, three former players filed a class action suit claiming the NCAA did not do enough to prevent and treat brain injuries and they have some ammo. Internal NCAA e-mail show the NCAA did not enforce a concussion policy for schools and that`s it`s top enforcement official opposed penalizing coaches who put players back into games after they were diagnosed with head injuries.

The other threat is the increasing recognition the entire model of exploiting the free labor of these young people without giving them a share of the billions in revenue they help generate is unsustainable. Just this week, EA Sports and the collegiate licensing company said they were settling a lawsuit brought by former players whose likeness were used in video games without compensation. EA also announced it would halt production on its called football game because it has been caught in the middle of dispute between NCAA and student athlete over compensation.

On top of that, a class action lawsuit against the NCAA by current and former players is currently making its way through the court. Victory for plaintiffs could be worth literally billions of dollars and it would likely fundamentally change the very nature of college sports.

Joining me now is Ramogi Huma, founder and president of the National College Players Association, a former linebacker for UCLA.

What is APU all about? How did this get started?

RAMOGI HUMA, PRESIDENT, FOUNDER, NATIONAL COLLEGE PLAYERS ASSOCIATION: Sure and thanks for having me.

The All Players United campaign is a campaign that was designed by current college at athletes that sit on our players` council. Out my organization is the National College Players Association and the councils serve as a student committee. They really give direction on how to better protect college athletes and really, they looked at one of the lawsuits that you mentioned, the (INAUDIBLE) case over publicity rights and there were a few players that currently play to join the lawsuit, but they immediately started to take criticism for standing up for the players and the players on the players counsel wanted to do something to show some solidarity behind them. And they started planning, you know. They said well, let`s do something visible. They had the idea of wearing something during the game, you know, and to bring attention to these causes, but also to develop the message because there is a lot of different issues that are important. You have mention concussions as well. The NCAA has done very little on concussions. If you compared to the NFL and NFL paved, they have done a lot.

HAYES: Well, one of the difference there is the NFL has a union and it has been subject to quite a bit of conversation.

I want you to hang around. We`re going to bring in a few other folks to talk about the future of the NCAA right after we take this break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HAYES: We`re back and I`m here with Ramogi Huma, joining us now is Mike Pesca, Sports correspondent for NPR and Kenneth Shropshire, a special counsel where he works on sports related matters.

Ramogi, one more question to you is, are you -- is what you`re doing forming a union? What is the end goal here? What are you trying to do with this association of college players? What do you want?

HUMA: Well, for the last 12 years, we have operated as a non-profit and we have no plans to create a union or go on strike (INAUDIBLE) or anything like that in all the years we have been in existence. But we have been able to make some progress. We sponsored laws that have been passed. We have helped shape public opinion through public pressure campaigns and even been around some important lawsuits that helped give out these basic protections. So, that`s the way we`re going to continue, but we need to do it in a way where players can voice a concern because at the end of the day, the NCAA always has special messages during the final four. Spend millions of dollars to spin what`s really going on.

HAYES: Do you think, Mike, you`ve been covering this a lot. And as particularly as traumatic brain injury evidence has mounted the way it has effect the NFL. And the NFL has instituted just a ton of new rules. But are they work or not is not the question, whether they are motivated by any kind of humanitarian concern or simply dollars and cents and PR, but they have done a lot. Are we seeing the same in the NCAA and is that just a matter of the fact the players have less power in this weird cartel unpaid system?

MIKE PESCA, NPR SPORTS CORRESPONDENT: Yes, I mean, that`s exactly it. We are seeing less. But the NCAA expects the NFL to take the lead and they don`t want to see themselves subjecting their players to anything dangerous. But at the same time, they have no power. The whole reason the NCAA exists and the whole reason they made this student-athlete designation is an end around liability for injury because if you`re a student athlete, not an employee, and you get grievously injured on the field, they don`t have to pay you. That`s in the records. That`s the history of the NCAA and why we even use the phrase student athlete.

HAYES: Kenneth, a lot of people look at increasingly, I think, look at big time college athletics and they say lot of people here are making money and the people off whom that money is being made, which are the athlete, I mean, there`s estimates that a college basketball player at Louisville is worth about $10 million to his school and revenue and to NCAA and television as well. A lot of people look at that and say the players should be paid. What do you think about that?

KENNETH SHROPSHIRE, ATTORNEY: Well, the heart of this, really nothing wrong with it. I mean, really, what we should focus on the resources to better use than paying head coaches five, $10 million a year rather than putting money into new buildings and the like. But more importantly, I think the work he`s done is important is the health care of the athletes. The long term health care and those kinds of issues, I think the idea of a salary or paying athletes, there`s nothing wrong can it. Amateurism is a myth. It`s a rule that`s been put in place by the NCAA. But the idea of paying athletes difficult to execute, but flowing more funds in their direction to the welfare and the performers on the field. That`s what is important.

HAYES: But part -- it seems to me that the thing that is stopping that from happening is precisely this power and balance. I mean, with everyone can say I observe from on high this is a corrupt or this is unfair system. But what actually makes change happen is power. And right now, student athletes as they are so-called, don`t, do not have a lot of power, partly because they are young. Partly because they move through and cycle through. They are not in the same place. Partly because they are distributed over a lot of schools. I mean, that is the fundamental issue here, is they don`t have the power to go head to head with the NCAA.

PESCA: Which is why Ramogi`s organization is so important because like you say, at 18, it seems like a fundamental injustice and at 22, you are in the NFL. And hey, I`m getting paid. And maybe Arian Foster says, hey, they paid you at Tennessee, but you know, he doesn`t really cares. No one really cares. Who is going to do this. Something like Ramogi trying to mobilize the people now.

HAYES: Well, Ramogi, I would imagine these are difficult conditions under which to try to organize or try to build power for all the reasons I just said. You have got people all over the country. You have also got a culture that is fairly (INAUDIBLE) used to taking orders and not being rebellious and speaking up and standing out. That`s just the mentality of locker room culture. Particularly in football, in which coaches have to manage huge amounts of people. Do you get a lot of resistance when you go and talk to players?

HUMA: I think this is why this is such a big deal. You know, these players, under that environment, still chose to take a stand and speak their mind and call attention to the fact they can be stuck with medical bills. They can lose their scholarships when they are injured. Graduation rates, you know, are 50 percent. And I think that always to empower the players -- players have power, whether or not they channel it, has been the question. And I think that this campaign was designed by players and there`s no question of why you see players participating because they`re doing it in a way that they`re comfortable.

In terms of television, they put those APUs out there on television. There`s a reason why the shoe companies put their logos on these players. Millions and millions of viewers are watching that and they are able to make a statement.

HAYES: Well, and there is also a reason that these players are using EA games. This lawsuit is remarkable. And just for folks understand. EA has been manufacturing this college football game in which they don`t use the name of current college players, but they essentially use the player`s identity. And if you`re a, you know, if you are star quarterback who is six feet and you wear number 12 and you are playing for Oklahoma state, the Oklahoma state team has a star quarterback who`s six feet and wears number 12 and they aren`t seeing a penny of the revenue being generated for the game.

PESCA: Yes. I need down to your skin tone and if you have an afro and it`s clear they`re the person. I mean, it`s part and pear sell of the NCAA saying hey, you should be happy. We are giving you a scholarship. EA says hey, you should be happy. We immortalized you in the videogame and the players maybe now are saying, you know, what would make us happy? A little bit of scratch.

HAYES: So Kenneth, how does this change from your perspective?

SHROPSHIRE: Well, what is going to happen is a lot of the conferences will separate out at some point probably. The NCAA (INAUDIBLE) so that the NCAA basketball tournament, situations like that, will continue, but there is going to be a change an economic change in system.

HAYES: Yes. I think there is too. I think we are headed towards a big economic change. I think some of these lawsuits might precipitate that, but I think a big thing might be public relations actually enforces.

Ramogi Huma from the National College Players Association, Mike Pesca from NPR and attorney Kenneth Shropshire, thank you so much.

That is "All In" for this evening. And guess who`s back? Rachel Maddow.

Rachel Maddow show starts right now right over there.

Good evening, Rachel.

RACHEL MADDOW, MSNBC HOST, THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW: Good evening, Chris. Thank you for having me on your show. That`s very kind of you.

HAYES: Thank you for coming.

MADDOW: Happy Friday, thanks.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.END

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